After a long time, I spoke to my old college roommate and a dearest friend, Javith.
We hadn’t caught up in years. But one short conversation was all it took for a flood of memories to come rushing back, memories from my first big step out of Delhi, into an engineering college hostel in Chennai, way back in 2003.
That was my first real journey out of my comfort zone. New city, new language, new people. But friends like Javith made it easier.
We hit it off from day one. He was in mechanical, I was in instrumentation. But beyond branches and lectures, what connected us was the rhythm of hostel life…walking to class half-asleep, dragging ourselves to the canteen for that forgettable food, and slipping out of the hostel when we couldn’t take it anymore. Fried rice from the street stalls, Juices from small shops, and my first egg puff from a tiny eatery that probably doesn’t exist anymore.
But there’s one moment with Javith I still carry with me.
We were sitting one evening, eating with a few others..just a normal night. And out of nowhere, he said something that has never left me.
“Abhi, even if that truck hits me right now, I’ll still be happy… because I’ve lived my life my way till today.”
I still remember going silent for a second.
He was 17 or 18.
No Instagram captions, no podcasts, no self-help books.
Just a plain, matter-of-fact sentence and an unusually clear mind for a college kid those days.
I won’t go into the context of why he said that as that is confidential to me and him.
But I will say this:
That one line, raw and real, has stayed with me more than most of the quotes I see floating around today.
It reminded me recently of the kind of people I was lucky enough to spend those years with, people who shaped me more than I realized back then. People like Javith, who may have spoken little, but whose words carried weight.
We often think college is about grades and placements. But sometimes, it’s just about sitting across with someone who sees life a little differently and says something that stays with you forever.
Funny thing is, I recently reminded Javith about that line and he didn’t even remember saying it. That’s what made it even more beautiful. He had said it so casually. But the tone, the honesty behind it… that’s what etched it in my memory all these years.
